7 Questions everyone should ask a retailer before deciding to buy pearls

In this article, we present the 7 most important questions each of us should ask a pearl seller before buying these beautiful natural stones! Some questions may seem tricky or even trivial, but thanks to this you will carefully check the seller and not be deceived.

1. Are these natural pearls? (trick question)

One of the most frequently asked questions by all interested people concerns the origin of pearls. But what is tricky about this question?

According to the standards used all over the world, natural pearls are pearls caught in their natural environment. It can be said that they are pearls from wild-living clams. However, for many years all pearls available in the commercial circulation have been grown. While both types of pearls are the most real (not artificial), only the first ones will be called natural.

Of course, natural pearls can be bought, but they will usually be private collections sold at various auctions or at very high prices.

So if the seller answers yes to such a question, and you are not at the auction house or at the collector's place and you are not asking about the pearls that are price wise equivalent to a new car, it means that the seller may not fully understand what he is selling. In that case it is worth asking for the expert's certificate.

For a seller who is unfamiliar with pearls or who consciously tries to hide some information, there is no difference between a natural pearl and a cultured pearl. Which is obviously a mistake!

So the correct answer to this question should be "they are cultured pearls."

2. Is the color natural?

Real pearls can sparkle with all the colors of the rainbow. Nevertheless, most pearls are color corrected. This is largely due to the current trends for these gems.

Pearl dyeing does not affect the improvement of other parameters of pearls, such as: shape, size and quality, therefore it is a commonly used treatment that has little effect on the price of pearls. It is also the only treatment allowed by the jewelery association.

For most customers, it makes no difference whether the pearls are colored or not. But we encourage you to ask the seller this question, because then (as in the previous question) you will find out in a very simple way whether the seller is honest and worthy of your trust.

So which pearls can be color changed?

White - white pearls are the most frequently chosen pearls. Usually when we think about pearls, we have beautiful white balls in front of our eyes. Since the demand is significant, it is often used to bleach slightly salmon or pink pearls to shades of white.

Pink - pink pearls (as well as salmon or slightly heather pearls) are pearls popular in farms. Their number usually exceeds the market demand, which is why they are most often natural colors.

Black - let's start with the fact that there are no typical black pearls (only such nomenclature has been adopted). In this case, we are talking about dark pearls with a shade of e.g. navy blue, purple, brown or green. Naturally occurring black pearls (mainly in dark steel, green colors) are the Tahitian sea pearls. Akoya freshwater and marine pearls are usually colored.

Gray - apart from Tahitian sea pearls, this color is not very common. Most pearls in this color will be color corrected.

Golden - the most luxurious color available mainly in the most expensive Australian (South Sea) pearls. The golden color can also be found in freshwater and sea Akoya pearls, but its saturation will be much weaker. If the golden color of these pearls is intense, it means that the pearls have been dyed.

3. Do you provide a certificate of authenticity and does it contain?

We all know that certification for real pearls is very important. Therefore, if the seller clearly does not provide such information, be sure to ask for him.

And I don't think we need to warn you not to buy from a seller who does not issue such a certificate, right? :)

Another important thing: what kind of information is included in the certificate?

We will give a very simple example.

One time, a lady called us to make sure that she would definitely receive a certificate from us. Because (important here) he often purchases in a very well-known, global company - we deliberately do not give the name - and there he always receives a pearl certificate.

Unfortunately, the problem is that this company only sells artificial beads, and it does not issue the certificate because they are real pearls, only that it is jewelry from their well-known brand ...

We take responsibility for our pearls with our entire company, which has been selling pearls in Poland and abroad for over 20 years. That is why you will receive each of our products with a sealed and signed certificate.

It contains all the most important information about the purchased jewelry. In addition to information such as the type of jewelry, precious metal or stones, we provide the type of pearls, their exact weight, shape, color and size.

You will also find a brief information on pearls, the terms of our lifetime warranty and the most important information on the storage and preservation of these precious stones.

4. What does repair look like(warranty)?

We are aware of the great disappointment of a woman's favorite jewelry, which for various reasons is not suitable for wearing.

Pearl jewelery (i.e. necklaces and bracelets) is threaded with a special jewelery silk-nylon thread. Sometimes, however, it happens that this delicate thread is broken and finally breaks, leaving us with a considerable problem. And hardly any jeweler will re-thread and knot for customer free of charge.

Therefore, before buying real pearls, you should carefully check the warranty conditions with the seller. Most often, we come across a standard 2-year warranty. But what if we bought more expensive jewelry that we wear only for special occasions and unfortunately it breaks after this period of 2 years?

In most cases, you will have to pay for the repair - if the retailer has the service at all

To face such situations, apearl® offers you a lifetime guarantee!

We will not ask how the the piece of jewelery broke. All you need to do is send us a necklace or bracelet, and we will repair and send the product back to you at our expense, as gratitude for the purchase in our store.

And if a pearl or other stone falls out of your fine jewelry, just send them back to us and everything will be repaired at no extra cost. Just remember to submit all the elements that were originally in the piece of jewelery.

We will do all these repairs free of charge, regardless of when the purchase was made. Who else is so confident in their products and offers such a service? We don't know :)

You can read more about it here:  Do we realy give a lifetime guarantee?

5. Are necklaces and bracelets knotted? ?

The quality of pearl jewelry can also be checked after finishing. Details such as finishing only with precious metals or tying pearls with knots can testify to their authenticity.

In our store, almost all necklaces and bracelets will be tied with threads with knots in order to protect the pearls from rubbing against each other, which could deteriorate their surface condition in the long run. Knotting also allows for a nicer arrangement of pearls and guarantees that the pearls will not fall apart when broken.

Example of knots between the pearls in the necklace

Only in cheaper products, where the most important thing is price, and the knotting itself would be economically unjustified(unneeded), a thread without knots can be used. In this case, this information is included in the description.

Therefore, if the seller does not have information about it, be sure to contact him and ask :)

6. What color exactly are these pearls?

The color of pearls is one of the most difficult to describe parameter. Especially when we are dealing with dark pearls, which can take on even a dozen or so colors at the same time. We try to make the photo reflect the color as well as possible. However, due to the different screen settings, it may be different on each monitor. Besides, the camera is not a human eye and it will not always "catch" all the colors.

Pearls described as white are practically never perfectly white. Such do not occur in nature. A real pearl always falls into a delicate ecru or pink, and sometimes even blue, green, silver, etc. For example, the same necklaces, made of qualitatively identical pearls, may differ in shade. Dark pearls, on the other hand, can be purple, navy blue, green, blue, brown, graphite.

Therefore, if you care about a specific color of pearls, call the seller and ask exactly about the shade. You can always inform us about the expected color, and we will try to match the model to your preferences :)

7. Czy mogę prosić o więcej zdjęć?

At apearl® we strive to make the photos of pearls as real as possible. Therefore, we do not specifically employ a professional photo studio that deals with the retouching of blemishes or other parameters that may mislead the customer.

It is not always possible to add high-resolution photos, because the store would then be much slower - the website would be too busy.

Therefore, we always advise that if necessary, you can contact us with a request to send you additional photos of a specific model. Then we take an additional photo and send it via e-mail in high resolutio.

But it is not everything yet…

Thanks to this, you are able to check whether the seller actually has a given product and I will not send you something completely different :)

Summary

We hope that after reading this article you are already a more aware customer and will apply the advice described!

We also recommend reading our article entitled „How to differentiate between real and fake pearls” which will allow you to avoid buying imitation pearls :)